Page 14 of Sidhe (The Incubus Saga #3)

The sound of that voice surged panic through Nathan’s chest like he hadn’t felt in so long. His eyes jumped wide to the rearview mirror. There was no mistaking the figure he saw in the backseat. Red on black eyes glittered at him from a handsome, smirking face—blond hair, black suit, red tie.

Before Nathan could react, Malak was already reaching for him, pulling him fast and rough over the seats into the back. Damn Nathan for not bothering with his seatbelt. Or maybe he had and that just didn’t matter where Malak was concerned.

Nathan had a moment of sensible panic, where he feared the car would pitch toward the ditch and flip, but even as he was being kidnapped into his own backseat, he could see that the car was somehow continuing to drive on its own.

Then the irrational, overpowering panic came back to Nathan as he found himself laid out on the leather, the dark fae king himself climbing on top of his body and holding him pinned with a surprising amount of weight for so trim a figure.

“I’ve missed you,” Malak practically purred.

It was natural to struggle, to try and push Malak away with how his lean body just seemed to be everywhere, but it did Nathan little good. Malak was strong so much more immovably than either Sasha or Jim.

“I was waiting for you, Nathan,” Malak licked at his lips with what might have been a forked tongue, “and finally… finally you let me in.”

Nathan suddenly had much more personal knowledge of that tongue. The kiss was fierce, the way Nathan knew he had been with Sasha before he left—possession with glee in the act of owning. It was like the first time Nathan had been kissed by this sidhe, like a rush of dry ice.

“S-Stop!” Nathan sputtered, jerking his head to the side to escape Malak’s mouth. He was certain his eyes flashed black as he snarled, “Get the fuck off me, you sick son of a bitch!”

“Now, now,” Malak chided, still grinning gleefully, “don’t act like you didn’t expect this.

I had to wait for the moment you whole-heartedly made your choice, Nathan, but you did.

Haven’t you realized by now that all your choices eventually lead to me ?

” He whispered hot against Nathan’s face, his image shimmering as he slowly became the female version with long, red hair and yellow on black eyes instead. “You belong to me, Nathan.”

Pressure overcame Nathan as if Malak were pushing on his chest. There were pulses of that pressure, flashes in the dark of the car that Nathan recognized as memory pressing in on him. It was the visions of his time in the Veil but they were different, sharper, focused.

Nathan saw Jim and Sasha, but Jim’s eyes weren’t white or amber and Sasha’s weren’t his normal slit-pupil red. Their eyes were Malak’s eyes—red on black, yellow on black—like Nathan’s dreams from long ago; his visions of a future made real.

He understood what Malak was showing him, how in every moment that he was with Jim or Sasha in the Veil of course it was really Malak—Malak touching him, torturing him, twisting him into his—her— their image. And Nathan had bent and broken just like a good boy.

“Why…?” Nathan had to ask, closing his eyes against the visions even though it did nothing to banish them. “Why them? Why that ?”

The car continued to move along the empty road, smooth and expertly steered by unseen power.

Nathan was lying flat on his back, his legs slightly tipped down into the crevice between the seats with the master of dark sidhe sprawled over him.

“Because,” Malak grinned—Nathan knew the bitch was grinning even though he had his eyes clenched tight, “it was a… necessary evil. To get you here. Now.”

“For what?” Nathan still didn’t know and it was obvious his time to solve the mystery before it was too late had already passed.

“Why me? Why do you want me ?” He opened his eyes and even though he could still feel that strange pressure like a great weight on his chest, the visions stopped, leaving only the form of the female Malak above him.

“Your scope is so small, Nathan.” Malak shook her head in disappointment, a hand snaking down Nathan’s chest. “You think you know something of the bigger picture, but you always count yourself out, or give yourself such a small role to play. Jim is merely an important aspect to the grand scheme. Don’t you understand yet? You’re the prize, not a consolation.”

The pressure increased, making Nathan’s breaths come short and gasping as he grew less and less able to struggle. “What are you talking about? Jim…he’s the one with the powers. He’s the changeling.”

“Ah, yes, the chosen changeling to bring down the Veil,” Malak said mockingly, chuckling to herself.

“I couldn’t be certain when the right children would be born, you see, I only knew that one of them would be a changeling.

Why do you think we take every changeling into the Veil, Nathan?

I had to be certain when I found my prize.

But the key to knowing Jim was the one…was you .

When I found you, when you made that deal to bring your brother home, you stood out like a beacon and I knew it was finally time. ”

A shock jolted through Nathan’s body, but it didn’t make sense. Why did he matter? There was nothing special about him.

“There you go again, Nathan, counting yourself so unworthy,” Malak said like a reprimand, as she allowed her straying hand to touch the bare skin on Nathan’s belly where his shirt had hitched up.

“It was always going to be you, Nathan. I was waiting for you. It had to be a worthy match, a worthy pair, for everything to fall into place. How fitting for it to be brothers. I couldn’t have planned it more perfectly. ”

Nathan didn’t want to hear this, all this preordained, you did everything just like we wanted bullshit. He was in control of his own life. That’s why he left. “But why? What is it about me that is so damn important? Jim—”

“Jim has the powers,” Malak sighed, “yes. As an Awakened changeling, he can control sidhe and humans alike and is immune to most ways either side might try to kill him. The perfect General to be at our right hand. But not a king. To have true power…you have to choose it for yourself.”

“And my eyes…?” Nathan said, remembering every vision and dream and brief hallucination he had ever had of his eyes being slit, or black, or…like Malak’s.

“Just a little part of me, Nathan, not yet complete, but so much more than being a mere Shadow Immortal.” She smoothed a palm up Nathan’s bare chest beneath his shirt. “Because you chose me and allowed me to stake the first part of my claim on you.”

“I chose Jim,” Nathan countered, flinching as Malak’s surprisingly cool hand glided up past his ribs.

He wanted this to stop, wanted Malak to stop touching him and pinning him so intimately.

He should be struggling harder to get away, but the pressure made it impossible to move. “In the Veil, I chose Jim, not you.”

“Nathan,” Malak said with something near sympathy but still mocking, “how could you think there was any difference?”

Malak pushed Nathan’s T-shirt up past his ribs. She looked on appraisingly, pleased when she saw the mark still carved over Nathan’s heart, and traced her fingers lightly over it.

“You don’t need to fight me, Nathan. Not anymore. I only want what you want. For you to finally have peace. No fear, no regrets. With Jim and your dear incubus by your side forever.”

Nathan huffed. “And how can you give me that? How do I fit into your plan? What makes me King ?” The pressure was so great now that Nathan couldn’t even flinch when Malak’s hand slid slowly back down to his hips.

“All you had to do was choose me, Nathan,” Malak said in a whisper, leaning in closer so that her cool cheek brushed Nathan’s, smooth and chilling at the touch, “but there are rules. You have to choose me three times to be truly mine. It would be three already but, damn the details, your bounty can’t count.

An act of self-sacrifice. I really hate that one.

But on my terms…oh, it was a challenge, but I still got you.

I always knew Jim and that beautiful incubus of yours were the key.

You chose me in the Veil, Nathan. You chose me again when you decided to leave your dear troupe behind and never look back. ”

Nathan wanted to scream, to push Malak away with every fiber in him, but the pressure on his chest kept increasing. He couldn’t move his arms or legs at all; he couldn’t even twist his hips away when Malak’s hands began to undo his jeans.

“Now I just need one more submission and it’s complete.

Choose me, Nathan,” Malak echoed what Nathan had heard from Jim for twelve long months.

“Choose me and you will be the one with the power. It was never meant to be Jim. That black desolate world I showed you, it never has to be that way. Our world will be glorious.”

Those long cool fingers slid Nathan’s zipper down then paused.

There were so many emotions Nathan should be feeling, and he was surprised because it wasn’t that he didn’t feel anything, but he didn’t feel what he expected.

He wasn’t afraid or even nauseated to feel Malak’s hand on him, promising a more intimate touch if she continued.

Malak daring to touch him the way only one person was ever allowed to had Nathan filling with fire.

“You need me…” Nathan moved his right hand, finding it no longer paralyzed, and grabbed Malak’s wrist before she could reach for his boxers.

“You don’t have any power here. Dark fae might slip through, but the king can’t fully cross over from the Veil unless it falls—everyone knows that; the war between Light and Dark made sure of it. You’re just an impressive illusion.”